Page 122 - SOM FALL 2017 BOOK

chow | local habithow | local habit
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plants to their hogs while also know that the coastal people lean on the French for being same way that Cajun food is a mix
they struggled to plant had large earthenware pots that responsible for the first food of West African, Southeast North
European crops and died of they would use to make stews. interactions that developed into American, and French, what we
malnutrition. There are firsthand accounts chowder. Clearly the name has know as chowder is a mix of
from early settlers talking about its roots in French, but there’s Northeast North American and
We know that the North Eastern the quality of these large pots. It’s also good evidence to suggest French. Whether it was because
Native Americans routinely har- a pretty easy, intuitive jump to that the French did not have the they were more culinarily adven-
vested razor clams, quahog clams, imagine the first French people same kinds of food biases as the turous or because as trappers in
and oysters. And that they would in what is today Canada refer- English, including which foods the North East they were work-
steam them open by laying them ring to one of these vessels as a were considered worthy of con- ing in closer conjunction with
between two layers of seaweed “chaudière.” sumption. There is also a prece- the Native Americans is anyone’s
and placing them over the top of dence for the French to mix well guess. But in my mind, the most
pits filled with heated rocks. We It’s for this reason that I would in a culinary sense. Much in the likely genesis of chowder is this